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Nutrition for your dog, what should I feed?

In today's blog I would like to talk about the best diet and nutrition for our dogs, because I am a big believer that nutrition is the key or a happier and healthier life! I also know from my own experience, that our diet effects our health, emotions and behaviours, which is the same for our dogs.

I used to feed my dogs kibbles for many years, because that is what I have been taught. I spend horrendous amount of money on the "best dry food" on the market, until I learnt how to read the ingredients label of food. It turned out that there was not much nutrition in that dog food at all.

I went and did my own research and studies on how to choose the best food for my dogs.

i also have been very privileged to meet the awesome Hannah from http://aussiepooch.com.au/, who helped me with all her knowledge to make the full transition to a raw diet for my pooches. I have seen a huge change in the behaviour and looks of my canine's. They overall much more happy, healthy and full of life.

I am delighted to have Hannah from Aussie Pooch here to ask her some questions on what to feed your dog.

What are the reasons that we get recommended to feed only kibble to our dogs?

Apart from the obvious such as cost and connivence, the main driving forces for people deciding to feed their dogs commercial processed 'pet food' in the last 100 years are the hefty marketing budgets of pet food manufactures and secondly the influence they have over the education of young veterinary students at university, who in turn are who the average person looks to when deciding what to feed their pet.You may be surprised to learn that veterinary students get as little as 20 hours nutritional study at uni. And what little they do learn is heavily influenced by major pet food manufactures. So they get 'product training' but learn little about natural nutritional requirements of the species. If they did, they wouldn't be recommending to feed a heavily processed carbohydrate and starch rich food with a 2-year shelf life. In fact, the conventional veterinary industry is the only medical profession that recommends feeding only processed foods and no fresh food. Fresh food could be harmful to your dog! Take a second to think about what your dog would have eaten in the wild. Not biscuits. It is no coincidence that in the last 100 years (since 'pet food' has existed), allergies, cancer, inflammatory conditions, arthritis, ear infections, major organ failures, auto-immune diseases and the rest have soared.

How can we choose the best quality food for our dogs?

The ideal diet for a dog is high in protein, high in moisture, of moderate good quality fats and low carbohydrate. It also balanced and very varied. Dry processed food (kibble) is the complete opposite of this.Contrary to popular belief, a better quality canned food is better than dry processed food (kibble). At least it looks closer to the real thing and is high moisture, and therefore the dog is not living in a chronic state of mild dehydration with its organs working overtime to compensate for the lack of moisture in its diet.When looking at commercial pet foods, here are some ingredients you want to avoid:- wheat, corn, cereals, grains, by-products, meat-meals, soy, gluten, and chemical preservatives.